Well, to cut a long story short, I had contrived to make their acquaintance, and had found that, underneath their rags and dirt, beat two honest and unselfish hearts. I had told them to come always to me if in need of assistance of any sort--an invitation of which they took advantage only once, and then when their straits were desperate. On every other occasion I had found them touchily independent, and though I sometimes bought flowers, bullrushes, mistletoe, or fern-roots from them for the decoration of my house or garden, they would not accept a farthing from me in the shape of charity. If I wished to buy the wares they had for sale, that was another matter; and even then I have reason to know that I got more flowers, bullrushes, or fern roots for sixpence than their usual customers got for a shilling. For some twelvemonth we continued the best of friends. Then suddenly their visits ceased, and I set eyes on neither again until I saw the pair of them at Shadwell--the woman curled up in the perambulator, and the man pushing it. "Nash!" I called out, running after them. "Nash, where _have_ you been all this time? And why haven't you and Mrs. Nash been to see me?" "We have been doing pretty much the same as usual, sir," he replied stiffly; "and thank you for asking." Then touching his ragged cap, he said brusquely, "Good day, sir," and, pushing the perambulator before him, passed along. But I was not thus easily to be shaken off. At first he stood very much on his dignity, answering my questions, in regard to himself and his doings, with civil but manifest unwillingness, but at last I contrived--and then only with difficulty--to discover wherein I had offended. On the last occasion, when they had visited me, I had said to him, as he was passing out: "Well, good-bye, Nash. Mind, if ever you get into trouble, be sure to come or to send to me, and I'll do my best to get you out." By "trouble" I had meant illness, or the inability to scrape together the small sum they paid as rent for the miserable hovel in which they lived. But in George Nash's world "trouble"--so I learned for the first time--has only one meaning when applied to a man (the word is used in a different sense in regard to a woman), and that meaning--jail. "I don't see why you should have thought that of us, sir," Nash said with quiet dignity. "Poor we may be, but at least we've managed to keep honest. And the inside of a prison we're never likely to see. We thank you kindly for what you've done for us, sir, the missis and me, but if you think as we're that sort, well, sir, we've made a mistake about you, and you've made a mistake about us, and we wish you good-day." Turning doggedly to the perambulator, he touched his hat and passed on.